


The Gift Was The Family We Became

by LadyMorgaine76



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A peek into the future, Gen, He's adopted by Rachel, Keith's 18 Bday party, Lotor McClain is now a thing!, Reborn!Lotor, Reminiscing the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 05:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17554652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMorgaine76/pseuds/LadyMorgaine76
Summary: It begins with a gift from Lance to Keith...It ends with a fond memory of a huge found family!Reborn!Lotor makes his debut!*Denial -- The NileIt's a nice play on words and I like it!





	The Gift Was The Family We Became

**Author's Note:**

> A random idea that came to me while baking a cake, of all things...  
> Hope you guys enjoy this small thing!

“So, this is Keith… say ‘hi’, Keith.” Lance pointed the Altean video recorder Coran had given him on his birthday at Keith's face, who looked somewhat between amused and annoyed.

“Hi, Keith…” The other boy mumbled, waving a hand and giving Lance tight smile.

“As you can see, he's an asshole!” Lance scoffed. “My good friend, Keith Kogane the asshole…”

“Are you guys fighting again?” Pidge grumbled, as she entered the lounge.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Keith and Lance said at the same time winking at each other, before turning a deadpan look at Pidge.

“Whatever…” She shook her head, collapsing on the opposite side of the couch, more interested in going through her pad than indulging her friends’ banter.

“So, tell me Pidgeotto,” Lance prodded her, kicking her feet lightly. “Have you got our resident Grumpy Cat a present or what?”

“I said I don't need presents…”Keith whined. “I don't even need a stupid birthday party! My birth wasn't that special to be celebrated every fucking year…”

Pidge and Lance exchanged a knowing look. The blue paladin turned off the recording device and sat by Keith's side.

“Okay, let's get a couple of things straight…” He said, squinting at Keith when he chuckled at the phrasing. “Stop that!” He pinched him in the arm. “One: it's not  _ stupid. _ We've been working all week on this and when you call it stupid, undermining our effort, you're saying you don't care about  _ us _ !”

“Sorry…” Keith winced.

“Second: We're all important, regardless of how and why we were born.  _ You _ made it through for all of these years.  _ You  _ are important!” Lance's expression was getting more serious by the minute, like he really needed Keith to fully grasp what he meant. “And third: Cake, man! We're having cake! Better than that, it's one of Hunk’s special  _ grandma's  _ recipes! I mean…” And his face lighted up at the thought of Hunk’s baking skills. “Strawberries and cream cheese, my dude”

“There's no strawberries, nor cheese in space, Lance!” Keith side eyed him, thought his voice carried a chuckle to it.

“Hunk found worthy substitutes,” Lance told him. “You'll love the cake, believe me…”

“If you say so…” Keith shrugged. “Ok, where am I supposed to be hiding until you guys organize the party?” He asked.

“Shiro's supposed to bother you to death with Second-in-command boring stuff.” Pidge informed him.

“Ah… wonderful…” Keith groaned.

“Try not to hurt your brother's feelings by being  _ that _ happy about reviewing tactics and shit…” Lance shook his head, shooing Keith with both his hands.

Keith got up, looking at the other paladins.

“Ok… how's this?” And he put an exaggerated happy expression on his face, clapping his hands and he screeched. “Oh, goodie! Tactical Leadership Practice! Boy, oh boy!”

Lance rolled his eyes and Pidge just grumbled as she facepalmed.

“Get out of here!” Lance yelled, clearly trying not to burst into laughter.

 

***

 

Just as Keith expected, Shiro went full Big Brother meets Garrison Teacher on him, making him go through the paces of analyzing  _ every single battle  _ they'd fought so far…

Just because this was a distraction maneuver, it didn't mean Shiro wouldn't take the opportunity to make sure Keith took his duties of Red Paladin and second-in-command seriously and perfected himself at it!

He didn't enjoy this…

But he would still do it, because:

This was  _ Shiro… _ you don't say no to Shiro when he directs either his Big Brother or his Team Leader face at you!

He was actually more expectant of the birthday party than he had let on!

Whatever Hunk had found to replace the strawberries and cream cheese was bound to make for a delicious cake! And like Lance had pointed out you could not help but love Hunk’s baking skills!

So, yeah… an actual party, cake… and Lance!

But that was for him to know about only. There was no way in hell he'd share with anyone that he really,  _ really  _ was looking forward for whatever it was that Lance had found to offer him.

He'd be glad with a fucking rock, as long as Lance offered it with meaning…

So, he sat there listening to Shiro and daydreaming of a different birthday in an unknown Cuban beach with just him and Lance…

A guy could fantasize, right?

 

***

 

_ “...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRUMPY CAAAAT! _

_ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUU!” _

Oh, God… that was… adorable!

Embarrassing…

But adorable!

Not that he would admit out loud.

He simply mumbled a shy “Guys…” paired with a visible blush, while the rest of his friends took turns in hugging him in what seemed to be a competition of ‘who can hug Keith harder’!

The cake was even better then he'd hoped for. Hunk was visibly happy with Keith's delighted face as he closed his eyes and hummed in satisfaction. 

“This is really good, Hunk! Thank you so much!” 

Hunk beamed, watching his friends devouring the cake like it was the best delicacy they'd ever eaten. 

“I'm glad you liked it. And you said you didn't want a party!”

“I was wrong…” Keith chuckled.

Lance made a surprised face, taking out the recorder. “Can you please repeat that? You know, for the official record?” He grinned. “I want palpable evidence you admitted to being wrong in  _ something _ !”

“Not a chance!” Keith stuck out his tongue before gulping another piece of the cake.

“Not to worry, number three!” Coran announced, as he happily twisted the tip of his moustache. “You can always access the security footage!”

“WHAT ?!?” The younger Paladins shouted.

“All of the common areas have security cameras.” Allura told them. It was visible from her expression that she had just caught on that they weren't totally on board with being watched… “It's been working since you awaken the Castle! It's ordinary safety procedure…”

“Guys!” Shiro was impressively standing, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “This is no different than the security measures back at the Garrison. I don't get what's bothering you all so much! It's only the  _ common areas _ , it's not like you're being watched in your sleep or anything…”

The other four nodded in agreement.

“So…” Lance drawled. “does that mean I can still keep the evidence?”

Keith slumped as the rest laughed.

 

As the party died down, they all gathered on the couch handing Keith their presents. 

It soon became obvious they'd managed to go back to the Space Mall, since most of the gifts were actual Earth stuff, that included a copy of _Stranger In A Strange Land_ , an ancient Smartphone that had in its storage tons of photos of Earth’s cities (Keith wondered if it had once belonged to some kind of traveller…) and various songs of all kinds, including _a lot_ of the ones he loved, a black tee shirt with the words _I Believe_ in front of a huge X, a pair of bulky red headphones that Pidge swore worked fine with the phone, Altean gadgets he wasn't quite sure what their purpose was (He would ask Coran later… Allura looked way too happy for him to admit that he had no idea what those items were!), and then …

_ THEN! _

A knife!

No! A dagger!

A beautifully crafted dagger, slightly curved at the tip, a black and silver blade and a dark purple handle with a silver lightning bolt engraved in it…

And it was Lance's gift!

Lance had offered him a dagger!

“I think you broke him…” Pidge said.

Lance looked worried for a while. 

“You don't like it…?”

Keith looked right into his eyes with a wide smile.

“It's a dagger, Lance…”He said, rolling his eyes. “Of course I like it! Come on! It's awesome!” His smile waned slightly. “But now I feel kinda bad that I only gave you a playlist…”

“Are you kidding me?” Lance reached Keith to pat him on the shoulder. “I loved the playlist! You know how I am about music! That was an awesome playlist, my man!”

Both paladins smiled at each other, oblivious to the rest of them shaking heads and rolling their eyes…

Hunk leaned towards Pidge making sure only she could hear him.

“You see that?” He whispered.

“Yeah… talk about oblivious…”

“A playlist and a dagger… and they still don't get it?”

“Denial* isn't only a river on Egypt, my friend! It's also a state of mind for those two!” Pidge smirked.

“I swear, if in years from now we're not telling this story to their kids, I'm suing someone! Don't know who, but I will!” Hunk huffed, as Keith and Lance continued their friendly banter, unaware of all eyes on them, noticing what themselves seemingly couldn't see…

 

************

 

**Twelve years afterwards**

 

“And that's the story of how your dad got his hands on that beauty!” Hunk told the kids, pointing at the dagger, hanging on the living room wall, where the kids couldn't reach…

… except a small feisty kid was already trying to climb the fireplace mantle to get to it…

“LOTOR! NO!” Hunk yelped diving for the kid. “Your uncles will kill me if you get hurt, kiddo! Right after Your mom judo-flips me, that is…”

“Awwww… Tio Hunk.” The boy pouted. “I just wanted to see it closer…”

“I'm sure you were!” He smirked, adjusting little Lotor on arms. “What is it with half Galra and all sorts of blades?!”

The boy shrugged as Hunk ruffled his soft white hair.

“Ok, it's cake time!” Lance's cheery voice called from the patio. “Birthday boy first! Come on Lotor, your mama is waiting.”

“Yay!” The kids cheered, running towards the patio where Dante and Kosmo ran around while Acxa yelled at them to stop.

“God, they're so big now!” Hunk marvelled. 

Lance snorted, watching his kids and his niblings arguing who got to sit closer to Lotor, so they'd be served cake first.

“I know… Sofia’s already thirteen…” He smiled. “I swear she reminds me of Keith even more!”

“Do you ever think back on how it was when we all first met? The likelihood of us being here today, with our own little families?” Hunk asked him, waving at his younger son.

“We're seven at home, Hunk!” Lance chuckled as they walked out into the patio. “Nine, if you count Kosmo and Dante! There's nothing small about our family! Besides, both me and Keith consider all of you our extended family, so…”

“Aww, thanks man!” Hunk patted Lance on the shoulder. “You're all my family too, you know?”

“Tio Lance!” Little Lotor waved at him. “Look! Tío Hunk made me a chocolate cake!” He smiled.

“Really? That's cool, buddy! You ready?”

“Uh-uhn!”

Lance reached for Keith's waist, pulling his husband closer to him. He smiled at Rachel, standing behind her son, lighting up the candle shaped like R2-D2 with a number seven on top!

 

_ “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUU…” _

 

***********

  
  
  



End file.
